I’d just opened the pack.
Just tore off the cellophane to reveal 20 perfect, menthol beauties waiting for me to suck on them like it was their birthday. ‘Course that tell-tale crinkle is like a goddamned mating call in my neighborhood. It was only a matter of time before some motherfucker came crawling outta the woodwork to bum one, like some long-lost family member after you hit the lotto.
As soon as I screwed one into my mouth and sparked the flint, I heard it: “Hey lil’ mama, lemme get one a them.”
Told you.
I silently held the open pack out to him, squinting through the smoke curling around my nose to get a good look at him. He was cute. Young, tall, with dreads pulled up into a pineapple on top of his head. We stood there in silence for a few moments, pulling long draws off our cigarettes. I was waiting for it. I was waiting for it because it always happens at the gas station. Always in the parking lot, and always at night.
“You gotta man?”
There it is.
“Married,” I grunted, tossing my cigarette and walking to my car.
“He ain’t gotta know,” he smiled crookedly.
“True,” I replied lightly with one foot in the car, “but I already got one he don’t know about and two dicks is a lot for any bitch to deal with.”
Leia John is a writer and all-around fucking lunatic. When she’s not busy chugging Red Bull and chain-smoking Newports, she likes to have a relaxing coma. Hobbies include hot baths, shitposting, and cussing at other people in foreign languages. Turnoffs include other people’s feet, the word “panties,” and bell peppers. You can find her at Poems That Suck or on Twitter here.
